Human-robot eye contact through observations and actions

Abstract

Eye contact is an effective means of controlling communication for humans, such as starting communication. It seems that we can make eye contact if we look at each other. In addition, we need to be aware of being watched by each other. We propose a method of eye contact between humans and robots considering the above two conditions. Then, we present a robot that can recognize hand gestures after making eye contact with the human. Experimental results show that the robot can recognize hand gestures without false detection, proving the effectiveness of eye contact as a means of controlling communication.